All Articles: BioShock

Yesterday, Microsoft added BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite to the Xbox One’s growing Backwards Compatibility list. Believe it or not, with the addition of these three games, more than 300 Xbox 360 games that are now playable on the Xbox One.

While a number of incredibly high-profile titles are now playable on the Xbox One, you might be wondering how many people actually bother with Backwards Compatibility. According to Phil Spencer, the Head of Microsoft’s Xbox Division, more than 50% of Xbox One owners use the program:

Now over 300 back compat titles. Nearly 50% of XB1 owners playing BC games is great to see. Thanks for supporting the program.

Football season is in full swing, and the NBA season is getting ready to tip-off this weekend, so it’s a great time to check out this year’s newest sports simulations. Gamers definitely agreed, as four sports titles were at the top of September 2016’s sales report from The NPD Group.

2K’s NBA 2K17 was #1, and it was followed by three from EA Sports: Madden NFL 17 (#2), FIFA 17 (#3), and NHL 17 (#4). Shooters dominated the rest of the list with BioShock: The Collection rounding out the Top 5, and Destiny: The Collection (#6), Overwatch (#8), and Call of Duty: Black Ops III (#10) all in the Top 10.

Believe it or not, Minecraft failed to find a place in the Top 10 for the first time in nearly a year. Perhaps this is why hardware, software, and accessory sales totaled $838.2 million last month, which is down from September 2015’s $1.09 billion tally. But the NPD is pinning the blame on the PS4 Slim and Xbox One S.

“Spending on software, hardware, and accessories declined by 23% compared to this time last year,” NPD Analyst Sam Naji told GamesIndustry.biz. “The release of the PS4 Slim and the second month of the Xbox One S was not enough to stimulate total hardware spending and this month’s new software releases could not compete with last year’s stronger slate of new games.”

The full Top 10 from September 2016 can be found after the break. (more…)

It’s a big day for the Xbox Games Store, as Xbox One owners will be able to choose from more than a dozen new releases this week, as well as the launch of Microsoft’s Xbox Play Anywhere program.

ReCore is a third-person action game for the Xbox One from Armature Studio and Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune. Players will take control of Joule Adams, one of the last remaining humans on Far Eden. As she struggles for survival, she’ll have to fight back against evil robotic foes and create her own army of friendly automatons. As the first Xbox Play Anywhere title, players who purchase it for the Xbox One will also receive access to the game on Windows 10 as well.

Most of this week’s new releases deal with “Survival” in some way or another, but The Witness is in a class of its own. Players wake up on “a strange island full of puzzles” and must work out the solutions if they want to continue in the Xbox One title. A simpler survival story can be found in Pac-Man Championship Edition 2, an Xbox One game that pits the famous Pac-Man against the Ghosts once again.

Frank West’s fight isn’t with any kind of spook or specter, but the living dead. And he’ll need all the help he can get as Capcom will re-release Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record on the Xbox One this week. The remastered games will feature improved graphics, and you can even grab all three of them at a discount with the Dead Rising Triple Pack.

2K Games and Irrational Games will also re-release a loosely connected trilogy for the Xbox One this week with the launch of BioShock: The Collection. Containing BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite, Xbox One owners will be able to play through visually-enhanced version of the games and listen to developer’s commentary from Ken Levine and others.

And are you ready for some sports? New hockey (NHL 17), racing (NASCAR Heat: Evolution), and soccer games (Pro Evolution Soccer 2017) are available to download for the Xbox One today. Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 was also released for the Xbox 360.

Finally this week, Telltale Games will launch new entries in two of their episodic series. Xbox 360 owners will be able to play as both Batman and Bruce Wayne in Batman: The Telltale Series – Episode 1: Realm of Shadows, while Xbox One and Xbox 360 owners will be able to experience the finale of Minecraft: Story Mode in Episode 8: A Journey’s End?

More information about all of these games (and a few other new releases) can be found after the break. (more…)

It’s a big day for the PlayStation Store and this week’s update starts off with enough sports games to fill a gym bag…

NBA 2K17 is the latest basketball sim from 2K Games. It’ll be available for the PS4 and PS3 on Friday, September 16.

NHL 17 is the latest hockey sim from EA Sports, and it’s now available for the PS4.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 is the latest soccer sim from Konami, and it’s now available for the PS4 and PS3.

NASCAR Heat: Evolution is also now available and its the first NASCAR racing sim to be released for the PS4.

Competitive eaters will also get their chance to shine this week as Bandai Namco has launched Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 for the PS4. The last Championship Edition game was released in 2010, and Pac-Man has learned plenty of new tricks in the intervening years including how to “bump” Ghosts. He’ll need all the help he can get, because Pac-Man will also battle bosses for the first time in Championship Edition 2.

One of gaming’s first heroes won’t be the only blast from the past to greet PS4 owners this week. BioShock: The Collection is a remastered compilation of Irrational’s beloved trilogy that’ll also include commentary from the developers. And Frank West will return in the Dead Rising Triple Pack, which will include Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. All three games will also be available as individual downloads.

Nostalgia-driven gamers might also be interested Rive, the final game from developer Two Tribes. A side-scrolling shooter with a dash of platforming for the PS4, Two Tribes likes to think of Rive as their “metal-wrecking, robot-hacking” swan song.

Finally this week, Telltale Games will add new episodes to two of their series. Minecraft: Story Mode – Episode 8: A Journey’s End? is available to download for the PS4 and PS3, while Batman: The Telltale Series – Episode 1: Realm of Shadows comes to the PS3 for the first time.

More information on all of these games (and a lot of other new releases) can be found after the break. And don’t forget, the PlayStation Blog has a complete rundown of this week’s new add-ons and discounts. (more…)

Advertisement

Ladies and gentlemen, it has begun. The “Fall Gaming Season” begins now, and publisher are flooding store shelves with more than a dozen new titles this week.

With the NFL season kicking off today, let’s start with this week’s sports offerings. EA Sports released Madden NFL 17 three weeks, but the publisher is back this week with NHL 17 for the PS4 and Xbox One. If you’re more of a basketball fan, 2K Games will release the NBA 2K17: Early Tip Off Edition this week for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Soccer supporters will also get a new simulation this week with the release of Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 on the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. And the checkered flag goes to NASCAR Heat: Evolution, which will be released for the PS4 and Xbox One this week.

Far away from Earth’s athletic fields is the planet of Far Eden, an interstellar colony that’s been overrun by villainous robots in Microsoft’s ReCore. Developed by Armature Studio, with additional idea work by Keiji Inafune, ReCore lets players fight back as Joule Adams, a resourceful woman who has her own team of robotic helpers. ReCore will be released for the Xbox One and it’ll also be available digitally for the PC as an Xbox Play Anywhere title.

You know who else has access to a lot of gadgets? Batman. And Telltale Games will put the World’s Greatest Detective through the ringer this week with their Batman: The Telltale Series – Season Pass Disc for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. The disc will include the first episode from Telltale’s Batman series and digital access to every subsequent episode released (the second is scheduled to launch on September 20).

Finally this week, a trio of re-releases will reintroduce gamers to a few beloved franchises. BioShock: The Collection will bring BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite together in a single package for the PS4 and Xbox One (and digitally on the PC) with improved graphics and exclusive commentary by Ken Levine and other developers from Irrational. Meanwhile, Capcom’s Dead Rising also makes the leap to the PS4 and Xbox One (and, again, digitally on the PC) with improved graphics. And Square Enix and Nintendo collaborated on a brand new localization for the 3DS release of Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past.

A complete list of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)

I can’t remember the first time I heard a rumor that 2K was looking to remaster the BioShock series for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One… but it was definitely a long time ago. Well, the time for rumors has ended, and 2K has chosen to officially re-release the acclaimed trilogy for the PC and new-generation consoles, as BioShock: The Collection, on September 13.

Development on BioShock: The Collection will be handled by Blind Squirrel Games, and the compilation will package BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite together for the first time. Not only will each game in The Collection feature remastered graphics, but it’ll also include every piece of single-player DLC for all three titles and a brand new video series, Director’s Commentary: Imagining BioShock, with new insights from Director Ken Levine and Lead Artist Shawn Robertson.

Here’s a rundown of everything BioShock: The Collection will contain:

BioShock

Museum of Orphaned Concepts: Walk through a Rapture-inspired virtual museum that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at discarded concepts that never made it into the original game.

Challenge Rooms: Outside the story of BioShock, tackle puzzles, splicers and Big Daddies. And Achievements, of course.

BioShock 2

Minerva’s Den: A self-contained BioShock story, presenting a side of Rapture you’ve never seen before. Use expanded combat abilities with the experimental Ion Laser and chaotic Gravity Well Plasmid, unique to Minerva’s Den, as you face off against the Lancer Big Daddy.

Protector Trials: Take control of an Alpha Series Big Daddy woken out of hibernation just before the events of BioShock 2.

BioShock Infinite

Burial at Sea – Episode 1 + 2 Add-On Packs: This major two-part DLC pack completes the BioShock trilogy by taking the series back to where it all began. Return to Rapture just before the events of the original BioShock!

Clash in the Clouds Add-On Pack: Face 60 waves of challenges across four additional maps for leaderboard glory and unlock areas to explore in The Columbian Archaeological Society hub museum.

While many people only know Jonathan Nolan as Christopher Nolan’s less-famous brother, the younger Nolan has his own rather impressive career in Hollywood. In addition to co-writing The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Prestige, and Interstellar, he is also the creator of Person of Interest and the driving force behind HBO’s Westworld reboot. Originally released in 1973 (and parodied hilariously in the “Itchy & Scratchy Land” episode of The Simpsons), Westworld takes place within the walls of a futuristic amusement park where the life-like robots eventually run amok.

Before you ask, yes, the original movie was written and directed by Michael Crichton.

But in turning the story into a television show, Nolan wants to go beyond Crichton’s original concept and he’s looking to video games for his inspiration. Naturally, Rockstar’s classic western, Red Dead Redemption, is at the top of the list. However, Nolan told Esquire‘s Matt Patches that the underwater world of Irrational’s BioShock also informed his latest creation.

Finally, Nolan cited an “interactive play,” Sleep No More, as a third inspiration. A similar interactive theatre experience, Tamara, directly inspired Tom Zito to develop Night Trap, and other full motion video games, in the mid-90s.

HBO’s Westworld reboot will premiere sometime next year and will star Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, and Jeffrey Wright. The first teaser trailer, which was released yesterday, has been embedded above.

That BioShockTwitter tease riled up the fan community and many hoped that the seemingly defunct franchise would re-emerge via a splashy Comic-Con announcement. That didn’t happen, but now we know what 2K was teasing: an iOS port of the original game.

BioShock will be available through the iOS App Store later this Summer as a “premium title.” The port is in development at 2K China, the same team that brought XCOM: Enemy Unknown to mobile platforms last year.

Like Enemy Unknown, the iOS version of BioShock will match up very closely with its console counterpart and include the full game as it appeared on consoles and the PC in 2007. Bluetooth controller support will be included, but a touchscreen control option will also be available. Because it needs to push your iDevice to the limit, BioShock will only operate on the iPad Air, iPad Mini 2, iPad 4, iPhone 5S, iPhone 5C, and iPhone 5.

Since we’re already well into August, BioShock’s “Summer” launch date is probably right around the corner.